Agreeing to Create Bad Games, What the Hell Is ‘Titanfall’? Chapter 58
Around noon the next day—
Gu Sheng was in his office, flipping through materials on popular VR shooting games from recent years.
He was engrossed when someone knocked on the door.
Knock knock knock—
“Come in.”
Gu Sheng put down the documents and looked up.
As the door opened, Lu Bian and Da Jiang appeared in the doorway, both wearing that mysterious I've got something up my sleeve expression.
“What’s up with you two?”
Gu Sheng frowned in confusion.
What’s with the sudden change? Was the sun rising from the west today?
Lu Bian walked into the office, plastering on a professional smile like a waiter at a five-star restaurant:
“Good afternoon, Director Gu. We’ve got one good news and one bad news for you. Which one would you like to hear first?”
“…I’d like to hear what your psychiatrist has to say about you first,” Gu Sheng said, deadpan.
“Tsk, Lao Gu, you’re no fun at all!” Lu Bian grumbled.
“Alright, alright,” Gu Sheng raised his hands in surrender, playing along with their antics. “Let’s hear the bad news first—get the suffering out of the way.”
Lu Bian immediately straightened up and nodded, back to his serious professional mode:
“Alright then.”
He handed over a document:
“The bad news is, our first-day sales are out. 2,085 copies sold. We didn’t break the record for first-day sales in our game category.”
“Hmm, that’s fine. Pretty much what I expected.”
Gu Sheng wasn’t too surprised or disappointed.
The game’s genre was a niche within a niche.
Even though a bunch of streamers tried it out yesterday, player stereotypes about horror games weren’t going to shift overnight.
Honestly, hitting over 2,000 copies on day one—Gu Sheng was actually pretty satisfied with that.
It might seem mediocre compared to their previous projects, but in the overall market, that was already solidly above average.
For Phasmophobia, blowing up overnight would take time.
“The bad news isn’t too bad.”
Gu Sheng closed the sales report and asked, “What’s the good news?”
“The good news… hehehe… the good news is f***ing amazing—”
Lu Bian grinned and handed his phone to Gu Sheng:
“Our first-week sales are probably going to explode!!!”
Huh?!
Seeing Lu Bian’s hyped expression, Gu Sheng was puzzled.
He took the phone, looked closely—and couldn’t help but suck in a sharp breath.
《Black Box Review: Phasmophobia—A Game-Changer That Redefines Horror Games (9.8/10)》
“This is… a media review?!”
Gu Sheng stared at the screen, stunned.
Media reviews were professional analyses and scores of popular new games, typically by major gaming websites or forums.
In a way, media reviews were a key part of a game’s marketing strategy—arguably even more influential than regular game news, since players generally trusted these pro reviews, especially from the big-name outlets.
But!
As far as Gu Sheng knew, in this world, VR game media reviews were usually reserved for big-budget titles.
Teams like Black Box rarely touched small-scale games like theirs.
“Damn… we’re seriously this lucky?”
Gu Sheng mumbled, clearly surprised by this pie falling straight into their laps.
“A free media review, just like that?”
But—
Lu Bian shook his head at Gu Sheng’s “lucky” theory:
“Lao Gu, if this was just one lucky review, I wouldn’t be this excited.”
He gestured dramatically.
Da Jiang stepped forward, laying a stack of documents on Gu Sheng’s desk.
“Bro Sheng, this time we really blew up.”
“Eighty percent of the major domestic gaming review outlets have reviewed and scored our game—
All with scores over 9.5.”
“Even indie reviewers with over a million followers on various platforms are raving about our game!”
Wait, what?!
Gu Sheng’s eyes widened in shock.
He opened the documents and saw a dense list of over twenty gaming media review scores!
SNG Reviews, 9.7: A chilling masterpiece of a game. Phasmophobia’s innovative psychological horror approach cured my long-standing fear of horror games!
Player Bonfire, 9.6: The era of cheap jump scares is over! Phasmophobia’s ‘psychological horror’ approach is a game-changer. If only they had a bigger budget…
Daily Games, 9.8: Fear of the mind! If you ask me where Golden Wind’s creative limit is, I’d say it’s like the fear in Phasmophobia—limited only by your imagination. They can do anything.
VR World, 9.7: Horror descends! A dimensional strike from a supernova developer! A little blue pill for horror game ED! Make sure you don’t have heart problems before you play!
Huaxia Game Forum, 9.7!
Lao Sang’s Game Reviews, 9.5!
Sluuurp Games, 9.6…
From professional review outlets to gaming forums, to video sites and indie media—
Every single one gave it glowing scores!
The only common critique?
Their low production budget, which slightly limited the game’s hardware performance.
Gu Sheng’s jaw slowly dropped as he read.
“This… this isn’t normal, right?!”
Logically, for a small-scale VR game like theirs, mainstream media shouldn’t even bother reviewing it.
Even if, by some miracle, one major outlet noticed the game’s quality and decided to review it, that would typically lead to a gradual ripple effect—one outlet reviewing it first, then the others jumping on the bandwagon over time.
Not a massive wave of reviews dropping simultaneously like this, as if it was a coordinated campaign!
“Someone’s boosting our marketing!”
Gu Sheng immediately realized this wasn’t just dumb luck.
A coordinated flood of media reviews like this—someone had to be pulling strings behind the scenes to give them a boost!
“Exactly!”
Lu Bian snapped his fingers, then raised an eyebrow:
“So… do you know who’s behind it?”
Gu Sheng’s first thought was Little Nezha.
After all, their company wasn’t that big.
If he, as the game director, hadn’t set up the marketing, then it had to be Nezha, the CEO.
But then he paused, shaking his head.
No, that couldn’t be it.
Nezha had always been adamant: no marketing, no PR, every penny into development. A true “let the product speak for itself” kind of gal.
Plus, given her understanding of the gaming industry, it was unlikely she’d think of review-based marketing strategies.
So… who else could it be?
Gu Sheng frowned in thought:
“Couldn’t be Nezha, right?”
Hearing that, Lu Bian casually hiked up his pant legs and flopped onto the couch, acting all mysterious:
“Yes and no.”
“No and yes.”
“All I’ll say is—this runs deeper than you think. And Nezha? She’s not as naive and innocent as we assumed.”
“You know what I mean, right? That’s all I’m saying.”
Gu Sheng: …
“Keep talking in riddles and I’ll throw your a** out of Binjiang City.”
“Whoa, whoa, no need to get violent, bro.”
Seeing Gu Sheng ready to stand up and deliver some righteous justice, Lu Bian quickly waved him off, grinning awkwardly:
“Alright, alright, I’ll spill, okay?”
With that, Lu Bian laid it all out—everything he’d seen, heard, and deduced.
After listening, Gu Sheng crossed his arms, frowning in thought:
“So… Nezha paid that extra 80k platform fee as a signal to YiYou for preferential treatment and policy support for deep collaboration?”
“That’s what Chu the Secretary deduced, too.”
Lu Bian shrugged:
“Nezha didn’t tell even Chu about this. She was so worried when she found out, thought Nezha was just burning money for no reason.”
“Hmm—”
Gu Sheng nodded.
Damn.
Nezha pulling off this kind of business move… her brain really worked.
She sidestepped the awkwardness of not having a professional marketing team, leveraged YiYou’s goodwill and preference, turned weaknesses into strengths, and played the game of business politics perfectly.
A tiger father does not beget a dog daughter, huh?
Gu Sheng couldn’t help but admire her.
Nezha might not understand game design, but as a top student from a prestigious university and from a business family, she definitely understood business.
“Anything else? Any other marketing moves from YiYou?”
“Of course,” Lu Bian nodded.
“To help promote our game, YiYou announced this morning that they’ll launch a Phasmophobia VR pod theme. Everyone who buys the game will get it.”
“Plus, they started a giveaway on Weibo—
Players who post with the #Phasmophobia tag, sharing clips, screenshots, memes, whatever, get a chance to win a brand-new YiYou X1.”
Holy sh*t.
Gu Sheng was quietly stunned.
Yan Sheng was seriously pushing the limits here.
Technically, Golden Wind hadn’t even met YiYou’s deep-collaboration standards yet.
Strictly speaking, even if Yan Sheng wanted to bend the rules a bit, he shouldn’t have been able to fully execute a deep-collab marketing push.
But here he was—
Helping them secure reviews, launching a themed VR pod, setting up a Weibo campaign…
YiYou was doing a lot.
In fact, the combined value of this marketing support easily surpassed 80k.
“Yan Sheng’s a solid comrade,” Gu Sheng nodded.
“Absolutely.”
Lu Bian also spoke with genuine admiration:
“If we tried to get this kind of review coverage on our own, we’d be lucky to land even one site for 80k.”
“So, in conclusion…”
Gu Sheng summed up:
“Don’t be fooled by Nezha’s usual airheadedness—
When it counts, she’s a f***ing genius!!!”
Phasmophobia took off, as expected.
Just like how success for a person requires both skill and luck, success for a game also demands two key factors—
Quality and marketing.
Without a doubt, Phasmophobia’s quality was top-tier in this world—head and shoulders above other horror games.
And with Yan Sheng’s relentless support—basically licking their boots with that marketing push—
Phasmophobia became the hot topic among players in just half a day!
When the clock struck 8 PM again—
Night descended, and so did the terrifying baptism of Phasmophobia.
Screams of horror echoed from countless streamers across the platform.
“WDNMD Wintermelon, this is the map you picked?!”
Late at night, with the wind howling, four people stood outside a creepy mansion, staring at the red-painted front doors flanked by paper figures and paper horses.
A faint wailing sound, like a woman’s sob, drifted through the air, and the two rows of funeral wreaths by the wall rustled in the wind.
The big “Condolence” character swayed ominously.
Liu Peiqie, Wintermelon, Liu Di, and Teacher Ma stood frozen at the gate, too scared to take a single step forward.
Originally, Liu Peiqie just wanted to try out the game after seeing its glowing reviews and hype.
But then, when the chat teased that FPS streamers were all cowards and pervs, Wintermelon’s pride flared up.
He insisted on picking the expert-level map to prove himself.
And so—
Here they were.
The haunted mansion.
A map Gu Sheng had personally added, packed with Chinese horror elements.
Liu Peiqie regretted it the moment he stepped in.
Should’ve never listened to Wintermelon’s dumb a**.
This game was creepy enough on its own.
He’d already gotten spooked watching Bro Piao’s stream earlier.
Now Wintermelon went and picked the scariest, most cursed map.
Forget everything else—
Just the paper figures and paper horses at the door were enough to give him the chills.
Maybe it was the night’s atmosphere, maybe his own nerves—
Liu Peiqie couldn’t shake the feeling that those paper boys and girls were staring at him.
Terrified, Liu Peiqie snapped:
“This is the map you picked, Wintermelon?! Don’t you dare chicken out later, I swear!”
“I… ahem!”
Wintermelon had started out cocky, thinking horror games were no big deal.
But the moment he stepped into that creepy mansion and realized he had no weapons, he freaked out.
Still, he had to save face, so he cleared his throat and tried to sound calm:
“C’mon, this is nothing! They’re saying we FPS streamers are cowards and pervs! Can you stand for that? Peiqie, you scared?”
Liu Peiqie, of course, couldn’t back down:
“F*** no! You think I’m scared? Di, you scared?”
“Hell no! I’ve seen it all!”
Liu Di wasn’t going to lose face either.
“Can’t scare me a bit! Teacher Ma, you scared?”
Teacher Ma was a little scared, honestly.
But seeing everyone else talk tough, he had to play along:
“If I say I’m not scared, I’ll sound lame… so yeah, I’m not scared either.”
No sooner had he said that—
All three FPS streamers took a step back!
“Teacher Ma says he’s not scared!”
“Damn, Teacher Ma’s a beast!”
“Since you’re not scared, Ma, you go first!”
“Yeah, Ma goes first, we’ll cover you from behind…”
The ridiculous scene sent the chat into a frenzy—
‘What the hell is this move?!’
‘Stuff your bros in your pockets, then push them off a cliff?!’
‘Breaking news: FPS streamers bully the League of Legends gold-medal lecturer.’
‘You three are absolute jerks!’
‘Is this even human behavior?!’
‘Teacher Ma: I need a stronger word than “helpless.”’
‘Hahahaha, I can’t take this…’
The chat was in stitches.
Even Teacher Ma was stunned.
“Oh, playing dirty, huh? The boss is a real piece of work…”
Still, despite being caught off guard by Liu Peiqie and the others’ shamelessness, the ever-good-natured Teacher Ma finally mustered the courage to take the first step.
The group shuffled forward together, nervously creeping up the mossy stone steps, finally pushing open the blood-red doors of the mansion.
It was a three-tiered courtyard.
The moment they crossed the threshold, the sight before them sent shivers down their spines.
Hanging from the lintel of the first courtyard’s decorative arch—
Two red lanterns, flickering with an eerie, dim glow.
Faintly visible on them—
The “double happiness” character.
“Holy sh*t—”
Seeing that, Liu Peiqie almost lost it.
“This is… a ghost wedding?!”